The real challenge in outdoor learning is in the planning. To have an effective outdoor curriculum, practitioners need to plan a stimulating environment. They need to see the learning potential of that environment, and recognise and support children's learning within it. Crucially, plans need to be based on the current needs of the individual child, taking into account their rate, or style, of learning. So where do you start?
When planning for the outdoors, practitioners need to consider five main areas: parents; provision; access; adult roles and responsibilities; the early years curriculum and day-to-day decisions.
PARENTS
An effective outdoors curriculum depends on parental support. You should find ways of keeping them informed every step of the way, for example, through photographs, videos, conversations, open evenings, outdoor play policy or a brochure.
Explain when you intend to develop your outdoor area and why, pointing out that children are happiest when they are active and that effective learning is at the heart of the outdoor curriculum.
Stress also that parents' expertise is needed outdoors as well as in.
PROVISION
When planning how to develop your outdoor area, you will need to decide what to buy, borrow, beg or fund-raise for, and where you will put everything.
To help you decide, consider how to resource a series of zones:
* an imaginative area with, for example, a home area with equipment and blankets * a building and construction area, with, for example, crates, tyres, cable reel and catering oil cans * a gymnasium area, with, for example, a climbing frame and planks * a small apparatus area, with, for example, a picnic table and bench * a garden area, with, say, vegetables, flowers and herbs * an environmental and science area with wild grasses and logs to look under * a quiet area with, for example, seats and arbours.
You will need to be clear about the learning potential of each of these areas when considering how best to develop and resource your outdoor area. Take, for example, a herb garden, which can be nothing more pretentious than some mint, sage and thyme plants. It will offer opportunities for:
* mathematical development (counting, classifying, ordering, measuring) * science activities (watering, planting, wondering 'what if') * communication and language development (descriptions of smells, colours, shapes, memories) * creative activities (using the herbs in cooking, for leaf prints and collages, as pretend food)
You also need to ensure your outdoor area offers plenty of things for children to do without close adult involvement.
Next should come an audit of your existing outdoor area. To support children's learning well, you should be able to find the following:
* Small and large equipment accessible to children
* A well-arranged storage system
* A range of textures, smells, sounds, sizes and shapes
* Provision for drawing, painting, speaking and listening, reading, counting, writing
* Access to sand and water
* Gradients
* Places to play imaginatively and equipment to trigger imaginative play
* Places to hide
* Places to dig and plant
* Places that will attract animals, insects and birds
* Places to be quiet
* Places of beauty
* Equipment to balance, swing and slide on
* Equipment to jump on and over and go through, to get into and under
* Equipment for investigating
* Equipment to kick, throw and aim for
* Equipment to push, pull and ride on
* Things to haul and build with
* Things for making sounds and music
Don't forget about storage in your redevelopment plans. Make sure it is well organised, labelled clearly and, if necessary, made vandal-proof.
ACCESS
Expecting all children to go outside at the same time will invariably mean that some children will be outside when they want to be inside and vice versa. Choosing only some children to go outside will lead to some children resenting not being chosen, especially if they need to move. Settings should, therefore, aim to give children the freedom to go outside when and if they choose. Only through this free flow between indoors and outdoors will they be able to meet developmental needs.
Such an approach has many advantages, especially the following:
* Children settle to activities indoors much more readily when they know they can go out when they choose.
* Not all children will want to go out at once, so there will be a manageable number with whom you can interact.
* Children behave well when they know access to outdoors is not a scarce commodity to be grabbed when they get a chance.
* The lack of time restrictions reduces interruptions in children's play and gives them longer to develop their interests either indoors or out.
* Children can make connections between indoor and outdoor activities, for example, finding a worm while digging outside and setting up a wormery inside.
* Children have the freedom to develop their play indoors or outdoors as they wish. Take this example of imaginative role play witnessed in one setting recently. A group of children were seen planning a wedding in the home corner. After allotting roles, they got dressed up, used bags to pack a feast, and went outside. Here, they got into a wedding car (a wheeled truck), and set off for the 'church'. They collected additional resources from the outdoor area, and the wedding party continued for the rest of the afternoon.
How might it be possible in your setting to enable children to use the outdoor area more?
ADULT ROLES
Outdoor learning can only be fully effective if early years practitioners know how to support children's learning in the outdoors. Here, you need to plan to be an educator, not just a supervisor.
The children need to see practitioners being active, both physically and mentally. Bored, shivering adults, only talking with each other, give children no idea of how to develop their interests. They become bored too, involving themselves in repetitious, unco-operative or stereotypical play. For example, when you see children racing around purposelessly on trikes then you know that they are bored. These children are not effective learners.
An educator:
* is interested in the children's interests
* plans to extend the children's interests
* has specific plans for the outdoor area
* observes children playing and notes down significant signs of progress * makes plans and assessments based on observations of the children * plays with groups of children, extending their ideas without dominating the play
* goes outside whatever the weather
* sets up equipment to challenge children physically
* has a wealth of songs and games to teach the children when appropriate * initiates interesting activities, such as planting bulbs.
CURRICULUM DECISIONS
All the early learning goals can be met in a well-organised and well-resourced outdoor area (see maths box). Many of the medium-term curriculum goals for topic work and for individual children can be found in the Stepping Stones within the areas of learning section in the QCA's Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (see box, p16).
It is better not to plan when to offer specific activities to the children too far in advance, but rather to observe them and match the learning goal and activity to their interest.
Within your planning, you will need to take account of the way individual children learn. It is particularly important that you plan outdoor learning for children who have particular play patterns or schemas, for example those who like to transport, envelop, enclose, fill up, build high, rotate, as the outdoors is particularly suited to their needs. For example, provide: * large clothes, cardboard boxes and hidey-holes for the closers and envelopers * shopping trolleys, bags and trucks for the transporters * crates, blocks and cardboard boxes for those with interests in building * tyres, cycle wheels, hoops and balls for those interested in rotation.
Planning for these children in such a way also provides a rich and stimulating environment for every child playing outside.
DAY-TO-DAY DECISIONS
You will need to set up a system that allows you to observe, plan and evaluate children's outdoor play on a daily basis (see table).
Your plans for the day will also be determined by how best to extend ideas for the current topic, imaginative play or exploration, the weather and anything that needs to done or to be given attention in the garden.
For example, take advantage of the seasonal changes to develop children's knowledge and understanding of the world. Look for signs of spring in the outdoor area. Look out for buds, blossom, green shoots, squirrels and other animals emerging from hibernation into the warmer sun. The outdoors should be a limitless source of information and inspiration.
At the end of the process, you should draw up an outdoor play policy and rules for the outdoors, covering, for example, what can and cannot be taken outside. Make sure that parents and staff are informed about your play policy and display a laminated list of the rules somewhere outside, to emphasise the importance you place on the outdoors.
